CEDAR FALLS, Ia. — After a strong showing in nonconference play, Northern Iowa spilled none of that success into its Missouri Valley Conference opener, producing a dud in Thursday’s 56-53 loss at the McLeod Center.

The Panthers’ offense was out of sync all night, and everyone had a hand in the futility. Tywhon Pickford was the only UNI player to reach double figures with 13 points, but he was stuck in single digits until less than two minutes to play. The Panthers’ senior frontcourt was largely a no-show, and the guard play was inconsistent as well.

Southern Illinois grabbed the lead for good with 13:43 to play and held off UNI down the stretch with a bevy of treys, including a dagger from Armon Fletcher that bounced straight up off the rim and dropped in with 58 seconds remaining. That handed the Salukis a 55-48 advantage and sealed the deal.

“It’s just going to take a lot of work the next couple days,” senior Klint Carlson said. “We have another game in three days, so I told the guys to think about this tonight, think about what we could’ve done better.

About that start ...

Call it a Christmas funk, a holiday hangover — whatever. But the offensive start Thursday on both sides was hilariously dreadful. The two teams combined for nine points in the first 8½ minutes, opening Valley play with clanks and turnovers.

Southern Illinois grabbed a 6-3 advantage with 17:23 to go in the first half, then didn’t score for the ensuing 6:56. But the Panthers went a step further, going 7:05 without a point after Juwan McCloud opened their scoring with a trey.

UNI’s defense held strong — but the offensive tone was set.

“When you’ve got your conference opener at home — and we had another great crowd, and the community has just been awesome the last two basketball games — you want to get out and get going,” Panthers coach Ben Jacobson said. “And we had worked the last two days on our transition offense, trying to get a little bit more done that way, trying to go with a little more pace offensively and get moving.

“Obviously, we weren’t able to do that early, and it took us a long time to really get anything going on offense. And unfortunately, I just think that kind of set the mood for the entire night.”

During the stretch where the two scoring droughts overlapped, the teams combined to miss 13 consecutive shots — seven from UNI and six from Southern Illinois. The Panthers offense picked up a bit toward the end of the first half, but the ineffectiveness returned after the break — as UNI shot just 35 percent (10-for-29) in the second half and 18 percent from deep (2-for-11).

Bennett bottled up

Atop the Salukis’ scouting report was limiting Bennett Koch, who was fresh off a 26-point outing against Xavier. Southern Illinois did just that, frustrating the senior all night en route to five points, eight attempts and four fouls in 22 minutes.

“I’ve seen a lot of film on Bennett Koch, too much,” the Salukis coach said. “The difference between last year and this year is we’ve got a guy down there who’s got girth, and we haven’t had that. Thik (Bol) doesn’t have a lot of girth, and Bennett could’ve just sealed him and pushed him wherever.

“Kavion has a really big butt — I mean, he does. He’s got girth, and it’s hard to move him around. So that helped us immediately. And I thought the guys who helped double did a good job on him as well.”

Pippen checks in at 6-foot-10, 240 pounds and forced Koch into a multitude of tough shots. Koch had some roll around and out, but Southern Illinois certainly took control in the paint Thursday night.

Down a man

Missing from the UNI lineup was sophomore guard Spencer Haldeman, who sat out because of back spasms suffered in practice this week.

Jacobson’s postgame update didn’t exactly sound promising.

“I don’t know,” he said when asked if Haldeman will be ready for Sunday’s game at Bradley. “Spencer was walking a little better tonight, not a lot better. So it doesn’t seem like — unless it changes a lot by tomorrow — that he would practice tomorrow. So we’ll just see how he’s doing tomorrow.”

Isaiah Brown (32) and Wyatt Lohaus (25) both saw extended minutes Thursday as a result. Haldeman’s absence stings in that he’d been playing well, having knocked down 11 treys in his last four games.

Dargan Southard covers preps, recruiting, Iowa and UNI athletics for the Iowa City Press-Citizen, The Des Moines Register and HawkCentral.com. Email him at msouthard@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Dargan_Southard.